


Brazen Bull

by HarveyWallbanger



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: I really crawled up my own ass with the science stuff here, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-30 01:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10865979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: Cold preserves.





	Brazen Bull

**Author's Note:**

> I am not involved in the production of Gotham, and this school is not involved in the production of Gotham. No one pays me to do this. Do not try any of this at home. Thank you, and good night.

In the bowels of the great old house is a wine cellar. Oswald leads him down a spiral staircase, and the air becomes cooler and thicker. It's the embrace of the grave, Victor thinks idly. With some effort, Oswald pulls open halfway a thick wooden door. Victor reaches a hand over Oswald's shoulder, pushes it the rest of the way, startling him. “Thank you,” Oswald says, gruffly, and turns on the light.  
“My father's wife and her children liked to keep themselves well-marinated,” Oswald says bitterly, with a funny little twist of a smile, “He had the wine cellar improved for them.” Victor doesn't know why this could be humorous, but since he was in Indian Hill, Victor finds that the strangest things make him laugh. Oswald, he knows, was in Arkham, which means that he was probably in Indian Hill. They all laugh at strange things, now, Victor supposes, after Indian Hill. Oswald shows Victor the temperature control. Victor's pleasantly surprised to find that the temperature can go as low as -40 degrees Centigrade. He spins the dial like a roulette wheel, and the air conditioner's motor kicks on with a rumble.  
“When will my equipment arrive?” he asks.  
“It takes time to pack up an entire lab,” Oswald says, a little sharply. He adds, in a more conciliatory tone, “If you want, you can oversee the move. I know that you have a lot of delicate equipment.”  
“No,” Victor says, taking off his goggles. The air is already cooling to a more comfortable temperature. He's probably jumping the gun, but even though it's still a little warm for his taste, it's good to feel the air on his skin. His vision's slightly foggy, but that will improve. Oswald shivers. “You can go,” Victor says, “If I have any concerns, I'll take them up with you in the future.”  
“You're welcome,” Oswald huffs, wrapping his arms around himself, and turning.  
“Thank you,” Victor says. The words feel strange to him. Everything, though, has been strange for a long time.  
“You're welcome,” Oswald says again, softly.  
The temperature continues to drop, and Victor sheds his suit. He hates it. He loves it. He needs it. He hates it. It's his home. It's his body. It doesn't feel, but that isn't so bad. Without it on, Victor feels too much. He misjudges distances, walks into tables and chairs. Even something at normal room temperature is too hot for him to handle comfortably. He burns easily. He's not injured for long, as his low body temperature retards the spread of tissue necrosis, or the subcutaneous vasodilation of a bruise, but the pain is still shocking. He doesn't like to be surprised.  
He finds himself saying this, shouting it, really, at Oswald, not too many hours later, after Oswald taps him on the shoulder. He yelped in pain. That bothered him more than anything else.  
“That can't have hurt you,” Oswald sneers.  
“It's your temperature,” Victor clutches his shoulder, “You're so much warmer than I am. It's like being burned.”  
“Oh,” Oswald makes a face, “So, no one can touch you?”  
No one's touched him for a very long time. Nor has he wanted anyone to. Nora's dead. Who else is there? “Why are you here?” Victor asks.  
“It's still my wine cellar,” Oswald says with a pout.  
“You should remove the bottles. It's far too cold for them. The humidity's also decreased. Dry air damages the corks.”  
“You sure know a lot about wine.”  
“It's just science,” Victor says, feeling- what is it?- ashamed- because he knows something? He used to feel that way all the time, when he was a kid. People don't like it when you know things- like they couldn't just read the same books that you did, and learn the same things. Like they thought it was witchcraft. Then, when he wasn't good at something, they were even meaner about it than they had to be. Being smart isn't being perfect.  
Oswald pulls his robe tightly around him. It must be night already. Time passes differently when you can't see natural light. If it goes on long enough, it changes your body. People start to function like they were on Mars.  
“It really hurt when I touched you?”  
“Yes. I told you it did.”  
“Can I do it again?”  
“No. Why would I want you to?”  
“Even if it hurts, it must still feel good to have someone do it.” Oswald sounds like he speaks from experience. What could Strange have done to him?  
Victor feels himself make a face. He's not sure what's happening. He has a dim idea, but so much has changed, and so much just doesn't feel the same way that it used to. Oswald is about the same size as Nora. She had blue eyes, too. Now, of course, all of Victor is blue. It's like she's inside of him, dyeing him from the inside out. Oswald's shoulders are narrow, and his hands are small. His fingers would be like lit matches.  
Victor holds out his arm. “Just on the back of my arm. The blood vessels are too close to the surface on the other side.”  
For a second, Oswald looks like he's no longer sure. Then, he spreads his fingers across Victor's arm. It's sparkling, sticky pain, like caramelizing sugar. When Oswald removes his hand, it flattens into a stinging ache; a wound you sweat into. Victor's breathing heavily.  
“Are you okay?” Oswald asks.  
“Yes. I'll be fine.”  
“Do you want me to stop?”  
He should. He doesn't, though. Somehow, Oswald convinced him that it's all right. Maybe Victor wanted to be convinced. It feels different than swinging out his hand and accidentally striking a wall. It's not really so bad. Isn't that funny?  
“No. You can do it again.”  
Oswald puts his hand on Victor's arm, further up. Now that he knows what's coming, it doesn't hurt so much. Or, it's a different kind of pain. It feels like things used to. He cut his finger or stubbed his toe, and it hurt for a moment, but he knew that he'd be all right. It wasn't serious. He wasn't dying. He felt all sorts of things, in those days. His bed was soft. Nora's skin was soft. The solidity of a test tube. Socks fresh from the dryer. He had a whole life in feelings, sensations. Cold and hot were just two of them. If he was cold, he put on a sweater. If he was hot, he opened the window. Now, he's become just one thing, all the time. Where's the rest of the world?  
Oswald moves his hand up, slowly, dragging a hell of heat up Victor's arm to his shoulder. Victor feels his heart beat. He rarely does, anymore. His metabolic functions have slowed to the extent that they're almost undetectable. Later, he'll have to take his pulse. This may all be in his head. He might just be remembering.  
What it was like, when someone with small, soft hands touched him. Nora touched him, and he could feel how much she loved him. He could feel how she wanted him, but he also felt her love. As steady and unerring as her pulse.  
As it once was.  
Oswald is lonely and bored, but Victor can't feel that. He only feels Oswald's skin, the slow crawl of the heat of his body.  
“Can I kiss you?” Oswald asks.  
“Not on the mouth.”  
“All right,” Oswald says quietly.  
“Not anywhere sensitive,” he adds.  
“No. I can see why you wouldn't want me to. I can't touch you there, either, can I?”  
Victor shakes his head. He feels himself smile. He thinks it must be like his old smile. Nora said he always looked sort of sad when he smiled. Like a clown in one of those old plays. With their tears painted on. Victor no longer produces tears. He doesn't sweat. He can't remember the last time he went to the bathroom. Oswald shouldn't be disappointed. Victor's not sure what else might be impossible for him.  
Oswald runs his hands over his body a little bit longer. The human brain can adapt to anything. Victor's relieved to find that his still produces endorphins. The pain is dulled slightly, buffered by a warmth that Victor can stand. It's soft and kind, and it keeps coming, as Oswald slips his hand down Victor's pants, over his hip. Nora liked a song called Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams. This must have been what they were thinking of.   
“How do I feel?” Victor asks, “Do I feel cold?”  
“Yes, but it's not bad.”  
“No,” Victor says, “I didn't think it was. You can kiss me, now.”  
Oswald laughs, his breath hitting Victor's skin. He picks up Victor's right hand, presses his mouth to it for two seconds. Victor counts them. He looks at his injury. Oswald's mouth left a small mauve welt, about an inch and a half long by an inch wide. Curiously, Victor watches it, waits for it to fade as the cells lyse from the heat, are sloughed, and reveal new ones, pale cyanotic blue in color. Several seconds pass, and it stays just the same. This has never happened before. Perhaps the moisture on Oswald's lips makes it harder for Victor's body to heal. Later, when he takes his pulse and his temperature, and examines the places that Oswald touched with his hands, he'll take cell cultures. This is an anomaly, and those are always good. They're how you learn. In addition to this, the novelty pleases Victor. So little happens anymore that is anything but a nasty shock or gray monotony. Victor's been wounded lots of times, and healed as though nothing had happened. It's as though he's born anew each moment. It should be liberating, but it makes him more tired than he can say.  
This time, though, he has tangible proof that something happened to him. He's not clean and smooth anymore. He's not ice and snow. He's not laboratory sterile. He's been marked- like any other human body would be. And it may just be that the mark is permanent.


End file.
